The notebook I'm using for my sketch workshop today also has my notes from the Monsterotica Romantasy Biology Class dragoncon panel in it, and last night I hung out with @dianeakelly.bsky.social nerding out about echidna genitals. Poor sweet Kevin McDonald might be in for some real weird sketches 😂

Recent paper from our lab on the puncture performance of hemipene spines in snakes! Some are like cat claws, others barely puncture. A single species can have many different spine morphologies and thousands of spines! 🧪 🐍 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10....

The German company that makes the mechanical ladder used in the Louvre heist has used the image to advertise, with the text 'When you need to move fast' 10/10 response, no notes

Two slugs mating. Collecting material for the next #invertefest ;) #biology #wildlife #invertebrates

Hot Water Balloon xkcd.com/3153/

i feel like i need to share this oldie but a goodie today

Shared courtesy of my Penn History colleague, Ben Nathans

Boxes also work on bobcats

Caterpillar Absolem feasting on Opium poppy (Papaver somniferum)

This is my 1st time catching my pet archer fish, Legolas, spitting on camera. Archerfish use modified jaw and tongue bones to fire a jet of water to knock down bugs from over hanging vegetation. Here Legolas is shooting down a fruit fly 🪰 🐠🧪

I’m really really really glad that @lilolmoi.bsky.social is still here to write this.

Post you from a different era

Irruption.

Nature research paper: Co-option of an ancestral cloacal regulatory landscape during digit evolution go.nature.com/3K576D7

Oh to be a little Tardigrade scratching its back on a bubble. 🫧🐻🧪

Just woke up from a social media pause and the first thing I see is an incredible footage of a sperm whale casually cruising with a giant squid in its mouth ?? 🦑 🌊 🌿

News in the history of molecular biology. The Science History Institute in Philadelphia has acquired a huge archive of correspondence and other scientific material from the pioneers of molecular biology (Franklin, Klug, Perutz, Delbrück etc, with items from Crick and Watson, too). 1/n

If you are wondering whether or not you can get a COVID vaccine, wonder no more… 🧪#MedSky

Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction 🧪 From Edward Tufte & graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d...

100% agree.

Yes, it was carefully hidden in the New England Journal of Medicine. Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1... ) 1/2

"It took her nearly two decades to find a permanent academic position. She found occasional work as a visiting professor, filling in for someone on leave for a year or two. She earned grants to fund her research... but she was often living on unemployment benefits" www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/s...

"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?" Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.

I realize broad science-literacy problems cannot generally be solved just by shoving more facts at people but I really wish more people understood that the entire purpose and mechanism of a vaccine is to educate your OWN immune system, making it about the most "natural" medical intervention possible

New fish paper! We found that Clinocottus globicpes eats anemones (weird!) using a novel wrestling behavior + strong jaws that likely started as adaptations for tearing algae. It also has thick skin that protects it from stinging cells. @jzoology.bsky.social 🐟🧪 DM for PDF. doi.org/10.1111/jzo....

The OG sexy, sarcastic nerd icon ... the Earth will miss you, Tom Lehrer. #rip www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjDE...

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪

Happy World Snake Day! This day is dedicate to raising awareness of the beauty, diversity, and ecological value of these amazing and often misunderstood reptiles. Here’s the skull of a python created for my book, The Dissection of Vertebrates. #snake #SciArt #WorldSnakeDay #skull

Need a mobile home? An incubation chamber? Dinner? 100s of species have hit on an elegant solution: find a nice juicy critter—and turn it into a zombie. My latest 'Just So' for @nzgeo.bsky.social with hilarious cartoons (as usual) by @giselledraws.bsky.social #scicomm www.nzgeo.com/stories/host...

This is a good time to remember that Moas, Emus, and the other ratites diverged so long ago, they FLEW to different continents, and then lost the ability to fly and became giants independently. You can't just sprinkle a few variants to make one into the other. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Summary Table of the massive defunding of biomedical research in the United States www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

In the wake of the USAID funding cuts, nonprofit org Wildlife Conservation Network is working to connect community based conservationists with funders around the world. In my conversation with CEO JG Collomb he explains WCN's philosophy, and why he encourages funding without strings attached:

We cannot scicomm our way out of this, part …I-don’t-know-I’m-tired-of-counting

It's all about the words and the words in the first 49 issues of LCRW came from the writers whose name are on the cover of the 50th issue: smallbeerpress.com/lcrw/2025/05...

Did you know that a study of lizard venom led to the development of Wegovy and Ozempic? American Scientist explains how even the most obscure research can lead to life-changing results.

If I scratch your back with kelp, will you scratch mine? That story and more of the best in @science.org and science in this edition of #ScienceAdviser: www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪

For the Past week we have been lucky enough to study a Nurse Shark Breeding Aggregation in the British Virgin Islands. This is one breeding event I was lucky enough to document via Drone. It was NUTS. #shark #science #habitat #ocean #marinelife #ocean #Caribbean @gacasselberry.bsky.social

Judge Young says he expects that the government will quickly comply with his order in this case. To clarify: he's vacating the grant terminations at issue. And wants the money to start flowing ASAP. Of note: the universe of grants "at issue" in this case is in dispute and will be litigated further

COUNTDOWN TO 50TH ANNIVERSAY OF JAWS THE MOVIE - 5 DAY: stephenpalumbi.substack.com/p/born-preda... THINGS WE KNOW NOW - HOW SHARKS GROWTH THEIR TEETH SHARP

Timeline cleanse, the best kind: Egg-laying mammal thought to be extinct rediscovered - ABC News

It’s Mary Anning’s birthday, so time to share @katebeaton.bsky.social’s brilliant cartoon again.

people need to internalize, very quickly, that federal research grants are a hypercompetitive contracting process not charity, and that what Uncle Sam gets in return for that money is American dominance in the future

OMG

Went for a hike, spotted five koalas sleeping in trees. All of them looked more or less like this.

This endless article by Forrest Wickman about one particular birdsong in the Charles Angels movie is an absolute masterpiece. He talks to the director, the animal wrangler, several scriptwriters, the guy who wrote the "Shazam for birds" app…. So many quotable lines! slate.com/culture/2025...

Whatever impostor syndrome you may have once had, dispose of it fucking immediately. If these people run the country, you deserve that promotion, you can run for city council, you can start that business. If this is the baseline, shit, you can do surgery drunk in an alley and you will do less harm.

It’s weird to live in a time when basic principles like cruelty is wrong, cheating is empty & the idea that curiosity, generosity, originality, the satisfaction of earned accomplishments & loving intimacy are the center of a good life feel like countercultural concepts

I'm not gonna do better than that.